I just received my metabones Speedbooster, a smart adapter to put 35mm full frame lenses on a APS sensor sony e-mount camera to create the full size look with a reduced sensor. and it works. from my first few pictures it really looks like full frame. and you gain a stop of speed.

so now thinking a bit bigger: if metabones would create the same thing for MF lenses with 35mm full frame DSLRs, shouldn't that create the MF look? or is the whole 'MF look' thing bollocks anyway, which kind of seem to be proven with the speedbooster concept? just wondering....

I just received my metabones Speedbooster, a smart adapter to put 35mm full frame lenses on a APS sensor sony e-mount camera to create the full size look with a reduced sensor. and it works. from my first few pictures it really looks like full frame. and you gain a stop of speed.

so now thinking a bit bigger: if metabones would create the same thing for MF lenses with 35mm full frame DSLRs, shouldn't that create the MF look? or is the whole 'MF look' thing bollocks anyway, which kind of seem to be proven with the speedbooster concept? just wondering....

If they create such thing you can mount it on the one you have and in one swoop you can kill both FF 35mm and MF and get the MF look on your APS camera, how 'bout that?

No idea of the maths but are there few gains to be made as 35mm lenses are generally faster than MFD lenses?I.e no point in putting a 2.8 MF lens on 35mm when a 1.2 / 1.4 lens is readily available and has working AF etc?

Wow, when did you put in your order? I put mine in a few days ago; haven't received it yet.

MF->35mm FF

is not THAT appealing to me. One, like mentioned above, we have equivalent lenses that have the same or even faster in 135 format.

E.g., the fastest 645 lens I know is Mamiya 80/1.9. That is the equivalent of a 53/1.2 on FF. Nice, but not unheard of.

And, to get a 645 image circle to fit a FF sensor, the reduction factor needs to be around 0.62, a lot more than the 0.71 of the current Speed Booster. Sounds like a bit more strain.

No, what I DO want, and do want now is basically the same exact optical formula (w/ reduciton factor of 0.71) that would mount to a Hasselblad (and other MF) mount AND the other end would mount to a yet-to-be-manufactured mirrorless DMF, OR, to something like the Hartblei H-cam and then a DMF back.

The 0.71 reduction factor will bring down a 56 * 56 format down to 39.5 * 39.5, which would ALMOST be perfect (but not quite) for the last square format DMF backs, e.g., CFV-16 (37 * 37). To get it down to exactly 37*37, we'd need a true 1.5x reducer (0.66x).

So with a relatively cheap square DMF back from several generations ago could suddenly act like a "near-full frame 6x6 back. Of course, if you have more dough to burn, you could get the bigger sensor DMFs and crop to square to get your true full fram digital 6x6 experience.

With the top of the line "full-frame" 645 backs, you'd be able to do 6x7 and almost 6x9, too! That would be awesome.

Its the sensor and the lens put together....I wouldn't say the major advantage of MFDB's is in the lenses....They are generally reputed to be pretty damn good but I think it's just the same as 135 format there are some lenses that are better then others...I'm pretty confident it is sensor resolution and size among other attributes that make MFD attractive.. http://brianhirschfeldphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/m7-vs-m645-1024x725.jpg left is Leica 35mm and right is Mamiya 120 in similar lighting conditions and even on film and with a poor scan you can still appreciate the differences in resolving power and dynamic range inherent in the larger sensor size (whether film or digital)

You're putting a lot of extra glass in there - 6 elements in all - I wonder what that might do...

One thing to put a stop on this show is that unlike a teleconverter, the focal reducer cuts the flange distance by half, which is why it's only going to be made for mirrorless cameras... It not only requires a lens with a bigger image circle, but a longer throw as well, so there's that.

I just received my metabones Speedbooster, a smart adapter to put 35mm full frame lenses on a APS sensor sony e-mount camera to create the full size look with a reduced sensor. and it works. from my first few pictures it really looks like full frame. and you gain a stop of speed.

Have you noticed any negatives like a loss in sharpness, contrast, or the like?

I think, and at least the cinematographers would agree, that the fabled "full-frame look" is three dimensionality from shallow depth-of-field in conjunction with the perspective of normal-lens-or-wider.

Is the "medium format look" just super-sized "full-frame look"? We can rule that out since a 50/1.2 lens can fully do what a 80/1.9 medium format lens can do in terms of shallow depth-of-field and perspective. So, the "medium format look" must be something entirely different.

We can pick out a MFDB image without even needing to pixel peep, even without using a large aperture. What is causing medium format to have that medium format look?

I think, and at least the cinematographers would agree, that the fabled "full-frame look" is three dimensionality from shallow depth-of-field in conjunction with the perspective of normal-lens-or-wider.

Is the "medium format look" just super-sized "full-frame look"? We can rule that out since a 50/1.2 lens can fully do what a 80/1.9 medium format lens can do in terms of shallow depth-of-field and perspective. So, the "medium format look" must be something entirely different.

We can pick out a MFDB image without even needing to pixel peep, even without using a large aperture. What is causing medium format to have that medium format look?

I'm definitely not an expert on this subject, but it's probably a difference in the optics used for any given focal length, an 80mm lens on 645 has a similar field of view to 50mm on 135 but it's still an 80mm lens and most likely uses different optics.

In medium format the way the background goes out of focus is also different, it's very smooth and gradual, whereas 35mm looks like the plane of focus is paper thin and anything outside is fully blown. There is a coefficient in lens design that actually controls this rate of falloff, and needs to be biased for a sharp DOF transition as a part of fast lens design. Another thing is comparing lens performance wide-open. Using a DOF calculator a 150mm f/2.8 MF lens wide open has about the same DOF as an 85mm lens at f/1.3, but the 150mm will be extremely sharp, whereas the 85mm needs to be stopped down to at least f/2.2 for sharpness.

In any case, how cameras perform on paper, or even should perform, has nothing to do with how they're actually used and how the image will actually look. Leave charts for the measurebators. I've handled an IQ180 and seen it's images and now I want one badly.